By Jesse Graham
WHEN visiting Warburton, one of the must-see sights is the town’s sculpture house – a mammoth, ever-expanding artwork by local identity, Boinga Bob.
Bob, whose real name is Robert Prudhoe, created the house in the 1990s, after his former house on Highfield Road burnt down.
Using the land that the house stood on and the former Stationmaster’s house (which was also used as a youth hostel), Bob, 76, slowly created an artwork of a home that draws global visitors and media attention.
“All the hostellers used to visit me across the road, there … and I’d come down here with my guitar and sing songs and things, and they were always welcome at my place,” Bob said.
“It was about 1993, I suppose, I moved down here. I wrote to the hostel people – this was empty and I offered to be caretaker down here and look after it for them.
“I knew it was going to be my building, it was like a sixth sense … so immediately, I started knocking out walls and windows and rebuilding it to my dream.”
Sitting in the house, remnants of the Stationmaster’s house are visible in some of the walls – but most of the house is adorned in elaborate woodwork designs, which Bob makes by hand, as well as art and items that he collected in his overseas journeys.
Holding a photo of a group of men, including a much younger Boinga Bob, he said he visited Africa in the 1970s and learned Swahili, much of which he still remembers today, and recites the names of the men without pause.
Bob recently experienced possibly one of the luckiest heart attacks possible – inside a doctor’s surgery, 400 metres away from an ambulance.
He was taken to Maroondah Hospital underwent a quadruple bypass operation, but is unencumbered seven months on as he tells stories about his past, including when he met the man who burnt his other house down.
“Somebody actually put a match to it and burnt it down, and a few years later on, the same person … came to me and said ‘I’m sorry, Bob, but I was the one who burnt your house down’,” he said.
“And, immediately, I said ‘Look, I forgive you, but please don’t do that again – it’s not nice to burn someone’s house down’.”
“But the thing is, if you don’t forgive someone, you’re in prison. You are.
“A very famous person once said ‘forgive and you shall be forgiven’ – I’m not a bible basher, but I do know a little about things which have been written in scriptures.”
The new house quickly became an icon in the town and Bob said he feels well-supported by other residents, with many rushing to his defence when issues arose with council about part of the house in past years.
“I’m very grateful for being part of the community, because the community do support me, and they’ve proven it,” he said.
“They said there’s immense support and if there was any trouble, if it did happen, we’d get in front of the bulldozer … because a lot of people come to look at my place and they spend a lot of money. They go to restaurants and things like that and I’m quite happy about that.”
A public Facebook group called Save Boinga Bob’s House currently has 1659 members, who regularly post in support of Bob and his art.
As for the future, he said he was hoping to organise a grant through the Yarra Ranges Council to maintain and improve the sculpture house.
